If The Red String Is Broken (We'll Tie It Back Together)
by the-east-hunter
Summary: Joe can't remember why he was ever friends with his old summer camp buddies, but he supposes that's just how youth is. It was easier to came friends back then after all. But when he get's an unexpected call from one of his old friends he finds himself pulled into an investigation to try and track down what happened to the missing memories and lost friendships of his youth.
1. Chapter 1

**Inspired by If Memory Serves (mine's not so reliable) by WerewolvesAreReal.**

**First of all a big thank you for werewolvesarereal for permitting me to write something inspired by their lovely work If Memory Serves. If Memory Serves has been a favorite story of mine for years now, (in fact all of their work is lovely, it's stuff I read whenever I need a nostalgia kick or just want to read good prose) and while I'd never change anything about the masterpiece, while I was rereading it I couldn't help myself but to think of how there could possibly be a happy ending somewhere in the distance for the digidestined. Of course none of this is 'canon' or whatever for If Memory Serves, just inspired by it, and I hope that you enjoy the read!**

**For those wondering about The Hope In Tamers it's not discontinued! I've been busy with college projects and decided to go ahead and write down some ideas I have lately, but Hope In Tamers is always on my mind in the background.**

**I'm not sure whether or not I'll continue this, but let me know what you think and we'll see what I can do!**

**I hope you enjoy the fic!**

oOo

Izzy is taller than Joe remembers. Or thinks he remembers. Memories of his childhood friends comes in flashes, disorganized and chaotic, clattering harshly against his skull. For some reason it's hard to pin down the amount of time he's known Izzy and how they came to be friends when they were children. Looking at him sends his brain glimpses of that signature red hair, an orange shirt, a school uniform, computers and the sound of summer cicadas. Before Joe can grasp one of the flittering memories it slides through his hands as if he's trying to catch a fish in a pond. Instead he's left with the facts, not the glimpses of dreams or whatever else those had been.

He's younger than Joe by a few years, has an invested interest in computers, to the point where sometimes he seems to have a hard time remembering people outside of his screen. While Joe wants to learn, be well equipped to become a doctor, Izzy has a thirst for knowledge that he's never quite understood. Like it was water, or air. Essential to his very livelihood. Izzy could be a good kid, Joe muses, if he didn't let that pursuit of knowledge swallow him so entirely whole. But despite that, they had been friends for all of Joe's adolescence, for reasons that he couldn't quite grasp now.

Almost flippantly Joe dismisses the thought. Children are able to make friends with nearly anyone.

Joe takes his eye off of the younger kid, instead choosing to focus a little more on his ramen in front of him. It was nice of Izzy to offer to take him out for a meal, as a college student he was always jumping for the chance of free food. But this was unexpected. The call from Izzy had been rather abrupt and cordial, requesting to talk about… something. Whatever it was had yet to come up. Had yet to manage to penetrate the air of awkwardness that spread out between the two, turning the air to gelatin.

He had said yes, of course. Probably due to some feeling of responsibility to his old friend. Back when he had first left for college, he could recall the same group of friends giving him a piece of paper with all of their names and numbers on it. 'Just in case' one of them had said. Izzy had been there at a time, and Joe could recall the look on his face back then, full of pain and caring and connection. It was absent from Izzy's eyes now. Joe had held onto the paper on a whim, or maybe because it felt important somehow, a demarkation of the separation from his childhood and his adulthood.

"Joe." Izzy finally spoke, his voice was tense and it instinctively Joe's shoulders raised. "Why did we become friends?" Whatever it was that Joe had been expecting from this meeting, that certainly hadn't been it. But the question was asked with complete sincerity, earnest and searching eyes looking forwards. "When we were children, back at summer camp, you were the oldest. Therefore you are the one most likely to have relatively intact memories of that time." Izzy rattled off before fixing his stare back onto Joe expectantly.

"I-I don't know." Joe replied, somewhat flustered. "We were kids, we were at a camp. That's usually what kids do, isn't it?"

"Then why aren't we friends now?" Izzy prodded and Joe grasped for an answer.

"Sometimes people just aren't compatible. And sometimes that only comes to light as they get older." Joe said, and this time he said it calmly, looking at Izzy with softened eyes. Was he having a hard time making friends? Perhaps the other kid - he was more of a man now - missed the old days. Maybe he was lonely in college or in his career. "You're a, a nice guy Izzy. I'm sure people will want to be your friend." Now it was Izzy's turn to be thrown off, his mouth working soundlessly as it seemed to try and decide on a word to speak.

"Th-Thats not it!" He said, voice approaching indignant. "It's been bugging me for some time now, and no matter how many times I go over our childhood in my head I just can't seem to find the source of any friction that would cause us to all seperate like we did. Fraying on the ends until, until there's no cloth left. Only threads." Izzy took a breath and blew it out frustratedly.

"People drift away." Joe responded carefully. It was nice? Almost? How much it seemed like Izzy apparently missed the old group, although Joe wasn't sure he could understand the feeling.

"I'm not sad about it." Izzy said derisively, as if he had sensed Joe's thought and was determined to cut it down. "It just isn't right. It doesn't sit well in my mind. I've tried to talk to Tai-"

"You still talk to Tai?" Joe interrupted, eyebrows raising. Izzy shifted in his seat.

"From time to time. More often than I do any of the others." He admitted. "He's an even older childhood friend. An outlier, if you will."

"Izzy, it's been ten years, why are you bringing this up now?" Joe asked, rubbing the bridge of his nose for a moment.

"It's been on my mind for a long time, but while I was moving some things in my room I found something of interest." Izzy reached into his shoulder bag that he had brought and withdrew an envelope, holding it out towards Joe. Joe couldn't help the skepticism that reared up as he took the letter into his hands, reaching inside to withdraw the paper. With careful fingers he unfolded it and began to scan through the writing.

'Dear Izzy,' It started off, before going on to explain that it was in fact a letter written to Izzy by Izzy. So he had found a time capsule then? And it had made Izzy suddenly nostalgic? Joe continued down the letter, reading it line by line before finally coming to the end, where it was simply signed, 'Yourself'. He raised his eyes to Izzy.

"Okay…?" Joe asked.

"Joe… what did my letter say?" He opened his mouth to respond, but nothing came out, and he felt his eyebrows scrunch together.

"I- it was from yourself." Joe said, which wasn't an answer. "It said, uh…"

"This isn't a test Joe, you can read it again if you need to. As many times as you need to." Joe looked back down at the letter, his thumbs pressed deeply into the paper making it scrunch up, and he had to forcibly will his fingers to relax. He read it again, taking note to pay more attention this time. And then a second time, and a third, but the words that he read slid off of him like water on a duck. They refuse to stick, much less allow themselves to be formed together into sentences from which Joe could extract meaning from.

His hands were shaking.

"What is this Izzy?"

"It's the same if you have someone read it out loud to you." Izzy said instead. "I've been trying to read it for weeks. Finally, I managed to get a few words to stick. Something about summer camp friends. About paying attention to the missing time. The date I can read just fine, it was written the day before my eighteenth birthday. I have no recollection writing it."

Joe tried to take deep measured breaths, like he had learned. To manage his anxiety. But it refused to work this time, and it boiled up from somewhere inside of him, making it feel like his lungs were at half capacity.

"Izzy," Joe said desperately. "...tell me more." He could see the satisfaction on Izzy's face, and knew that both sides of the table knew that whatever was going on, whatever it was that Izzy was looking into, Joe was wholly onboard. He wasn't just onboard, he was committed. He had to find out what was going on.

"There's more. Everytime someone left our summer camp group, it was within a year after they turned eighteen. Even me - the last time I texted or called almost any of them was within a few months after I turned eighteen, and then I stopped almost all at once. And some of those old texts, they do the same thing that the letter does. They just can't stay in my head, no matter how many times I read them. Words don't register, or if they do they don't stay that way for long."

"How many of the, uh, summer camp kids have you talked to about this?" Joe asked.

"Right now, just you and Tai. But regardless of if things went well today or not, I've been hoping to get in touch with Cody as well. To start out with at least, we'll definitely need all of those who seem to be caught up in this in order to truly find out what's going on. That is…" Izzy said, voice suddenly becoming small and quiet all at once. "...if you're willing to help."

"I'm in." Joe said firmly, sticking his hand out. Izzy gave a big grin and reached out and took the hand. It still didn't feel right, and he still was unsure why he was so inclined to trust Izzy like this, when his memories provided him with nothing that would back it up. But with his hand in Izzy's he knew this choice was the only one that made sense at the moment. "Where do we start?" Izzy beamed.

"We're going to need to find out who can and can't read the letter first of all, see if it's all of the summer camp kids. IT's clear that through persistent hard work some things can be gleaned from the writings, and with any luck we can see if the other's have similar pieces that are as inscrutable from which we might be able to absorb some information." Izzy rattled of. "Oh, and of course, we need to find out what exactly this is."

Izzy reached and placed something on the table, pulling back his arm and letting Joe's curious eyes manage to get a good look.

Sitting innocently on the table between the two boys is a light blue device of some kind, and it sends a shiver up Joe's spine.

oOo

**Thank you so much for reading!**


	2. Chapter 2

Kari turns over and buries her face deeper into her pillow. Her face is hot and flushed, and she can feel the fabric pressed against her face becoming progressively more and more soaked with tears but they don't stop coming. Her childhood bedroom provides little comfort despite it's familiarity, if anything it seems to emphasize what is missing. What is gone and will never be here again.

A weight comes onto her bed, and the spring squeal in the agedness. A hand, familiar, reaches over and rubs small circles in her back. Kari takes a few deep breaths and finally straightens up, sitting and looking over at her brother, who looks at her with sad, sympathetic eyes.

"I'm sorry." He says mournfully, and Kari presses up against her brother, arms tightly holding onto him. She's 21 but all at once she feels like she's eight again, small and vulnerable and so sure that Tai is an impenetrable pillar. That he can shield her from the hurt of the world. He wraps her arms around her and softly hums under his breath.

"Mom's going to the crematorium. Do you want to go or…?" Tai asks softly, and Kari's grips his shirt tightly.

"I can't." She mumbles, and he nods. "Please don't leave me." Kari says as Tai stands up.

"I'm going to go tell mom to leave without us. I'll be right back." He assures, and when he leaves Kari's view she breaks down again, the tears flowing freely down her cheeks before pressuring her hands to her eyes, trying to take deep and steadying breaths that do nothing to sate the pain that has burrowed into her chest. There's the sound of the front door opening and closing, and then there's Tai, standing in the doorway, two cups of hot chocolate held in his hands.

"Hey kiddo." He says softly, taking his seat next to her again. Kari blows on it, hands absorbing the heat from the cup.

"I feel so stupid." Kari admitted, shoulders sagging and seeming to collapse in on herself. "I'm an adult, I'm in college. Why is the death of a cat affecting me so much?" The words were meant to come out frustrated, but instead they were just tired and sad.

"Miko's been around your whole life." Tai pointed out. "It's only natural that Miko passing would cause you sorrow. You know, I cried before coming over here."

"You did?" Kari asked, hesitantly, voice sounding small and vulnerable. Tai nodded his head.

"Yep. It was so weird to come in and not have Miko rub up against my legs or meow at me until I give them a treat. And it probably will be weird for a long time. Miko was part of our family, it's okay to be sad they're gone." Tai assured, and Kari took a small sip of her cocoa. Tai must have added some milk into it to help cool it down because it didn't burn her tongue. Instead it was perfectly warm and rich in her mouth.

Kari couldn't stop thinking of the way her mom had told her the news, eyes downcast and sad. And when Kari had started sobbing so suddenly, an emotion and mourning that had somehow been trapped deep inside of her suddenly welling up and rebelling… the way that her mom had looked at her with melancholy, pitying eyes, like she knew something Kari didn't. Like she understood Kari's pain and sorrow better than even Kari did.

So Kari sat on her bed, looked at the ripples on her hot chocolate made from her tears, and tried to shake the feeling like she was forgetting something. If it was truly important, she mused, she would probably remember it.

oOo

"I never took you as a religious man, Joe." Ken said offhandedly. Izzy and Joe had started with the old friends that they felt they had the most in common with. Tai was busy doing something with his family, so the current meeting was just the pair of them, Cody, and Ken. Basically the quieter kids with an interest in learning. Tai remained an outlier, and Joe felt guilty to admit to himself that he was relieved that the boy with his gravity defying hair and loud personality couldn't make it today. While he was sure Izzy had told Tai about the inclusion of Joe in this little investigation it had still been at least eight years since Joe had seen the other boy face to face. Maybe longer than that. And he didn't want to look at this man who he knew should mean a lot to him, should be full of nostalgia and childhood memories, and just feel… nothing.

"I'm not." Joe responded to Ken, and looked down at himself, trying to figure out what it was about him that gave the other kid that impression. Oh, his necklace. He held the small pendant in his hand for a minute, eyes tracing the the simply black resin cross. "It was a gift from my brother, seemed rude not to wear it. And I think some patients are more at ease, thinking that their doctor can pray for them." Joe explained, and Ken gave a slow, thoughtful nod.

An added bonus to recruiting Ken on the crew was the fact that he was becoming a detective, and Joe was hopeful that those skills would work in their favor. Both Ken and Cody had been shaken up by the letter that Izzy had shown them, trying desperately to grasp for a logical explanation.

"Did everyone bring their devices?" Izzy asked excitedly, and the three other's obediently withdrew the items from their bags or pockets. Joe's was the same light blue as Izzy's, but the other boys had what seemed to be different models entirely. Izzy had done extensive online research, trying to determine if there was a chance that these were merely some kind of childhood gaming fad that had faded from memory, but it was like whatever these strange devices were had simply never existed. Ken and Cody both had a different model, so distinct that at first Joe had been reluctant to think they could even qualify as the same thing. They were a completely different shape and both were colored - one black and one yellow.

"It took me a while to find." Cody admitted. "I don't even remember getting it but apparently my grandpa packed it up along with some of my stuffed animals for posterity's sake for when I have a family of my own." The youngest of the group, Cody was sandwiched in between Joe and Izzy, and seemed to perfectly fill the space.

"I was reluctant to do any tests without the rest of you here - I don't know if any discoveries I make can be replicated, and the more witnesses the better."

"Izzy, if it's alright with you I brought my camera and a tripod." Ken spoke up. "I was thinking that we could set it up to record the whole thing."

"Prodigious!" Excited energy seemed to come off of the redhead in waves, eyes shining. "Go ahead and set it up!" Ken obediently went and got the camera ready, giving a quick thumbs up as he pressed a button on the top of it, a green light turning on. Izzy turned to the camera, face a bad attempt to look serious. "Today we will embark on our first experiment with the strange devices. The people who are participating in this meeting is myself, Ken, Joe, and Cody." He rattled off before he turned back to the table, where Ken had reclaimed his seat.

Joe held his blue device in his hands and pressed the buttons, frowning.

"So, I don't know about you guys, but mine doesn't even seem to turn on." He admitted. "But I don't see anywhere to put batteries or attach a chord to an outlet…" Cody nodded.

"I was thinking the same thing Joe."

"Maybe they're like simple calculators that just need sunlight to charge." Ken said thoughtfully.

"Well let's start by trying that out." Izzy said. "We'll take one of each kind and put them in my windowsill for a week, and then see if they turn on." The others around the table nodded. Izzy took two off the table and set them to the side - Joe's and Ken's. That left Izzy's and Cody's on the table. "Now, for the fun part." Izzy's grin did not settle well in Joe's stomach, but did seem so distinctly Izzy like, so familiar. Joe wondered where he had seen it before.

"Is that a hammer?!" Ken exclaimed, and Joe watched Cody reach out his hand and snatch his device, pulling it back towards himself.

"Relax Cody, I would ask your permission before doing anything so drastic to yours. I've already tried to pry open the edges of the device with a screwdriver, but they've done nothing. You might want to step back." Joe left his chair obediently.

"Why did I let myself get roped into this?" Joe said worriedly, facing away and shielding his face with his hands, wincing as he heard the loud, clattering sound of metal coming in contact with something, and the table shook on it's legs. Cautiously he turned and looked, expecting to see the object in pieces.

"Prodigious." Izzy whispered, holding up the hammer. The metal caught the light, showing off the imperfection, spiderweb cracks that had inched their way up the hammer's head. The device sat innocently on the table, still in a single piece, not even showing a crack.

"I don't think we're going to be able to dissect these." Ken said, reaching out and holding up the device with slightly shaking hands, eyebrows scrunching together and long hair like curtains framing his face.

"We're going to need to get our answers some other way." Cody agreed.

oOo

"Oh how nostalgic!" Mimi coos as she dusts off the old photo frame, revealing eight small smiling faces, facing the camera. That old summer camp dress, ah yes, those were the days. She missed the days of her youth, when she had worn whatever she wanted without a care, so secure and sincere with who she was. In the back of her mind she wondered if she still had that cowboy hat hanging around somewhere or if it had been lost in one of the purges of her wardrobe.

Her eyes kept looking up, trying to take in the figures in the background behind the children, like shadows of static. But each time her eyes seemed to glide past them, never quite managing to grasp the forms, and failing to maintain a hold on the memory that there had been something there that she had missed. With a sigh she put the picture back into the box. Nearby a small device gave a chime and with an excited clap of her hands Mimi reached out and grabbed her phone, eagerly seeing who it was that had texted her.

"Yolei?" Mimi tilted her head to the side, mind working. "Oh, Yolei, one of Kari and TK's friends. Nostalgia times two." She chirped, opening the message. She had met Yolei a couple times, but couldn't really remember anything notable about the girl. The message stopped in her tracks though, and she felt her eyes widened.

'Mimi,' It read. 'I know it's been a long time, but I need your help.'

oOo

**Let me know what you think of the chapter! Review give me motivation to keep writing. **


	3. Chapter 3

The reunion between Joe and Tai was lackluster, which oddly matched the feeling that Joe had about the whole ordeal. It felt like it should be some grand event, after all this time. After all the history between them. Knowing each other as children and all that and however this strange mystery connected them. But instead Tai looks over him with bright and happy eyes but there's nothing special in them. There's none of that love you have for close friends. Now that Joe saw him in the same room as Izzy, he could tell that though Izzy n was right in saying that they had maintained more of a connection than the rest of them, things had still cooled between them.

"How've you been?" Tai asked congenially, but there was a part of Joe that was sad to hear it, a part of him he no longer knew. The way that Tai said those words felt wrong, off, like Joe expected the warmth that they used to be said with during his childhood.

"Good. Still working on my doctorate." Instantly Tai's mouth curved into a slight frown, and his eyebrows came together, head tilting to the side.

"I thought you didn't want to become a doctor?" Joe froze for a moment, taken completely off guard. He could tell from the corner of his eyes that the other's in the room had noticed, and he tried to pull himself together. It was true, especially when Joe was younger, that he had been stressed and felt weighed down by the expectation to become a doctor. But the thing was, he couldn't recall actually telling anyone that. In fact, it was unlike him to confide that kind of thing in someone - he usually kept things bottled up.

"Eh, yeah, I can't believe you remember that." Joe said, and scratched the back of his head. "It just seemed like a good path I guess. A practical career." He gave a halfhearted shrug and tried not to let the single question reopen the old the wound of what he had wanted to do with his future. Maybe, in another life, he had found a good reason to become a doctor. But now that he was really giving it thought, he wasn't entirely sure why he had decided to go this way. Perhaps, with his father, it had just been the path of least resistance

"Are you two ready to go?" Izzy asked anxiously, leaning forward in his chair. Joe and Tai both nodded back.

"I guess the beginning is the best place to start." Joe said. "I just wish we knew what we're looking for."

"It's what we have to go off of for now. Me, Cody, and Ken are going to do a few more experiments on the devices - Ken texted me some ideas on how we might be able to glean more information from them." Off to Izzy's side Ken nodded, hand clenched around his digivice.

"I also found a letter like Izzy's." Cody added, holding up a thick envelope. "So we can also work on that while you guy are out. There's not point in me or Ken tagging along with you guys anyway, since I don't think we've ever been there." Joe nodded and tried not to get psyched out at the idea of spending the next few hours with someone who had become a stranger to him.

Neither of them could afford a car at this point in their life, but when Joe had talked to Shuu about his plight and anxiety over taking a bus and missing it, getting him and Tai stranded in the mountains, he had happily let him borrow his car. In fact, if Joe had to nitpick, maybe even a little too eagerly. He hadn't even told his brother where he was going exactly, had just mentioned he was going with an old childhood friend, let Tai's name slip out of his mouth, and suddenly Shuu had been willing to bend over backwards to get Joe up into the mountains. Maybe he was just happy that Joe was doing literally anything besides studying.

Joe drove since it was his brother's car, and Tai had immediately rolled down his window, hanging one of his arms outside the car and leaning his head out slightly to let the wind whip through his hair. In his other hand was some kind of orange object, and it took Joe a moment of glancing at it during stop lights to realize what it was.

"Is that your device?" While Cody and Ken's were different colors, both his and Izzy's had been blue, to see one a different color was a bit of a shock to his system. Tai looked over almost lazily, raising his hand and looking at his device, thumb gently brushing over it contemplatively.

"Yeah."

"It's so… orange." Joe commented lamely and finally Tai cracked a grin which relieved some of of the tension that had built up in Joe's chest. It was wrong to see the other boy's face so serious. When they were kids he was always so loud and enthusiastic, and sometimes Joe could recall wondering if he had ever had a sad thought in his life.

"Kinda like a traffic cone, right? The paint's really chipped though - if you look close you can see the blue underside - ah, but don't, like, keep your eyes on the road and all that." Tai said quickly.

"You painted yours? Do you think they were some kind of… weird art project? Maybe Izzy's wish came true and camp really was a computer camp." Joe posited and Tai gave a small laugh, shaking his head.

"It wasn't always painted. Kari did it at some point. I was actually really mad that she had gone through my stuff and like, vandalized it kind of. I wanted to yell at her but then she started to tear up and…"

"I mean, who _can_ stay mad at Kari?" Joe replied good naturedly, and Tai gave a firm nod, tilting his head back and sighing.

"She is way too aware of just how much she can get away with. Not even my mom can stay mad at her." Tai slumped forward slightly in exasperation.

"Have you thought about bringing her into our little group?" Joe asked, taking one of his hands of the wheel to push up his glasses as he navigated the traffic.

"I mean, she wasn't one of the summer camp kids." Which wasn't really an answer.

"Ken and Cody are part of it, and if anything they're even further from the summer camp group. I remember Kari used to tag along when we played all the time." Tai's hands had moved in front of his, knotting together and clenching, unclenching.

"Something about all of this feels a little… dangerous." Tai admitted, and Joe was relieved to hear someone actually say it. "Izzy had you read the letter, right?" Joe nodded. "That's not normal - and I've seen other people read it. A couple of weeks ago, when Izzy first came to tell me about this, we went and had one of his college friends read it. She recited it out loud five times and tried to put it into different words in what seemed like a million different ways, but nothing stayed. And the entire time, the look on her face…" Tai stared forward at the traffic, but Joe knew he wasn't really seeing it. "...she looked so sad. Whatever that letter said, it was enough to nearly bring her to tears. Izzy isn't really known for his poetry, so it wasn't so beautifully written that she just couldn't help herself. It was more than that. And the worst part? Whatever is going on here, after she read that letter, I could tell that it explained enough that she knew the situation. That she understood it. Maybe the whole world knows it. But for whatever reason we don't, no, we _can't_ know. And that has just a whole can of worms of implications."

Joe hadn't even thought about that, but a chill ran up his spine as suddenly his anxious mind went into everything that could mean in the span of a few moments. His mouth felt dry and his hands began to shake.

"What we're not meant to remember, can it hurt us?"

"When I asked Izzy that, he just said 'the pursuit of knowledge can never wound you.' But I'm not so sure…" Joe felt his head nodding along. "...but I also know that at this point I can't go back. The least I can do is leave Kari out of it." Tai said tensley.

"After reading Izzy's letter, I don't think I can let it go either. Although you sure have me thinking about how we have no clue what we're getting ourselves into." Joe admitted as he pulled the car into a spot near the base of a hiking trail. He put it in park and undid his seatbelt, opening his door. "We're here."

Joe wished he could say things looks just like he remembered them, but if he was being honest with himself he didn't remember much about the walk to the summer camp. And for once he knew with a certainty that wasn't something off or strange or suspicious, it was just one of those things about life and growing. An inconsequential moment from ages ago that his brain had calmly put to the back of his mind where most lost memories go. Part of him wondered, if he could manage to remember such an inconsequential moment, if he could find the place where his brain had been hiding all the other memories as well. The ones that were obviously so important and yet were somewhere he couldn't reach.

The hike up the hilly was on a dirt pathway that was well worn from countless children and their parents feet climbing it every summer, hoping that their child would be able to learn or glean something from the experience. Joe could recall that his parents had wanted him to come out of his shell more and make more friends his age. For at least the first few days, all it did was cause the anxiety in his chest to well up to new levels. But after that summer, he did have more friends, so apparently their plan had worked. But now he couldn't remember what it was that had brought them all so close together, such very different children.

Each step up the mountain felt like a step closer to the truth and a step farther from safety, as the conversation with Tai in the car hung heavy in his mind.

The summer camp had a haunted feel. The spring air meant that small wildflowers were poking up out of the grown, and the grass swayed in the wind. But plenty of snow was stubbornly sticking around. For a place that was supposed to be full of activities and excited children, the lack of any people or even animals was so wrong that Joe kept glancing around, expecting an adult to emerge from the woods at any moment, leading a small gaggle of kids.

"Hey, I think this the one I stayed in!" Tai had jogged up ahead and was looking eagerly into one of the cabins. Joe felt his eyebrow raised, surprised that they didn't lock these up during the off seasons. Or maybe they had just been lucky and this was one year they had forgotten to.

Joe stepped into the small cabin after Tai, looking around curiously. Everything was covered in a layer of dust, and through the light filtering from the window the particle in the air were obvious. The wood was scratched and old looking, familiar areas completely worn out, any varnish on the wood completely gone after years of little feet trodding on it.

"Hey, it's still here!" Tai exclaimed excitedly, looking under one of the top bunks. Joe looked curiously to see Tai proudly pointing at an etching into the door. 'Tai Kamiya, 8-1-1999'. Joe shouldn't have been surprised. Next to Tai's name were several others from a smattering of years since then. Joe opened his mouth to give some kind of reply, probably berate Tai for being so proud of vandalising property, when a thought came to him that made him stop.

"Tai, do you remember what the last day of camp was like?" The other boy gave a shrug.

"I don't know, everyone was sad and we all boarded buses?"

"No. Tai, I don't remember finishing camp. At all." Joe was frowning slightly as he left the cabin, walking around almost as if in a trance, looking around the camp, a lost look on his face. Tai trailed after him.

"We must have. We-" Tai froze, eyes wide. "We hitch hiked?!" He exclaimed, and Joe was envious for a moment as clearly Tai had managed to shake something loose from his memories. But the jealous vanished as Tai's hands raised to his head, a few pained sounds exiting his mouth. "Ugh, I can't remember! How many August firsts did I have?!"

"What do you mean?" Joe asked softly. Tai had taken to kneeling on the grass, and Joe reached out and gently put a hand on his shoulder.

"It's like, like every time I try to remember August first I'm in a different place. One second I'm at camp, the next I'm at home with Kari while she's sick, then suddenly I'm downtown. How was I in all those places if I was at camp? Did I run away? That doesn't make sense…"

Joe pressed his lips together in a thin line.

"Maybe we should head back to Izzy."

"Yeah." Tai agreed, and as they left Joe wasn't sure if they were heading towards Izzy, or running away from the summer camp.

oOo

**Hope you enjoyed it! Please leave a review if you did - they keep my motivated!**


	4. Chapter 4

Ken closes his eyes, and Ken dreams. He dreams of the hot desert sun on his back as he treks along sand dunes aimlessly, tear tracks marking pathways down his face until he stumbles and fall right through the sand. The grains cling to him and then they are thousands of spiders, crawling over his skin and they are creeping into his mouth and through his eyes and one of them burrows deeply into the back of his neck and he tries to cry out but widening his mouth only fills it with the cotton mothball stench of old decaying hands that reach in and -

Pink light fills Ken's dream and casts everything away until he is lying in a field of pink grass that sways in the wind underneath a pink sky with clouds that curl in on themselves forming a symbol familiar and alien all at once. He is resting against a body, and two strong arms wrap around him. To comfort. To protect.

"We are far away from one another." A deep voice says, and like the clouds is both known and unknown. It is intangible to his mind. "...I am only a dream to you now, aren't I? We knew this would happen. But even now I will protect you in what ways I can."

Ken closes his eyes every night, and Ken dreams of nightmares. But they never stay that way for long.

In a second, a minute, an hour if they're lucky, Ken will wake up and all of this will vanish. But right now his world is quiet, and he knows he is safe.

oOo

"'Dear Cody, this is yourself. I just need you to remember - you love armadillos and texan accents.' ...What the heck is this?" Joe looked over with a shocked expression, and Cody gave a small shrug. It had been a few days since Tai and Joe had gone up to visit the summer camp, and while the other three members of their little group had already caught up with the findings of Cody's letter before that, Joe had gotten busy with college not too soon after, leaving him to have to find his own time to get together with Cody and get caught up with anything that could be gleamed from the letter.

Cody was blushing and had a strange look on his face.

"I don't know what to think of it, really." The rest of the letter was so far fairly unreadable. There was something about a computer club, a warning not to get rid of the painting he had done when he was seventeen, and the letter ended with a simply signified of 'continue to pursue knowledge, remain reliable, and I will forever miss these days when I was me.' which was vey hearfelt and sorrowful. But nothing could quite beat that opening line.

"I didn't take you for a Texas kind of guy."

"I'm not. ...or I don't think I am." Cody said, feet swinging off the side of the pier where they had decided to sit. Something about the ocean air seemed to sooth both of their nerves, even if marginally, and when Joe had suggested the meeting place Cody had been more than willing to go ahead with it.

"What are the paintings?" Joe asked, choosing to try and go to the less embarassing parts of the letter that were readable. Cody gave a shrug.

"Caligraphic artistic painting of a yellow armadillo. My grandpa helped with me them. That was two years ago, but it feels much longer than that.

"I guess that sort of explains the armadillo part. Well, not really, but at least it connects. The Texas part is still throwing me off. You guys went to the US a couple times, right? Maybe you ran into some accents when you were there."

"Did we?" Cody asked, and the thought of someone forgetting the fact that they had visited an entire other country was so strange to Joe.

"I'm pretty sure you did. At least once. You had a friend there… Izzy's old friend. Geez I don't remember his name, I don't actually even know if we ever met face to face."

"We can bring it up at the next meeting." Cody offered, staring at his hands, face solemn. He opened and closed his mouth a couple times, like a fish gasping for air, fingers tightening. Joe felt his expression soften.

"... is there something you want to say?"

"...no." Cody said. Joe didn't believe that for even a moment.

"You can talk to me. I know we haven't exactly talked a lot in the past couple of years. Okay, longer than a couple, but you know you told me way when I first started college that I could call you whenever I needed to talk about something. I think it's safe to say that's recipricol."

Cody still took a moment after that, and though his face was generally closed off, Joe could see the micro expressions cross his face and sometkind of internal war went on. When had he learned to interpret those small expressions? He knew that he was close to all the others, but being around Cody he had this feeling deep in his gut - an echo of a feeling really - of protectiveness. Responsibility for the boy. It was not a feeling he was familiar with, and the act of comforting someone was foreign to his mind, but his muscles reacted as if they had done it a million times. As if they could recall things that Joe could not.

Perhaps they could.

"...I think I'm angry at you."

Joe hadn't expected that.

"...Oh. Why?"

"Not just you." Cody clarified. "At everyone. Whenever I look at you I can't help but get this… this feeling of anger that rolls over me. And I know it's not right, but I feel betrayed. And this one thought echoes over and over in my head." Joe felt his mouth open even as he felt as though he knew exactly what Cody would say.

"What's the thought?"

"That you all left me behind. That you left me all alone." In the moonlight Joe could see the gleam from the tear tracks on Cody's face. With hesitant hands he reached over and patted the boys back, bringing himself a little closer, close enough to wrap an arm around Cody and feel the way his shoulders shaked with sobs.

Cody turned his face towards Joe.

"I know this anger." Cody whispered between sobs. "I've felt it before. When my dad died. I knew it wasn't his fault, but I was still angry that he would leave me."

Joe looked down at the letter that he still held in his other hand, re-reading that last line.

He thought he understood, just a little bit. Whoever the boy was ten years ago, fifteen years ago, he felt as though he missed being that boy.

oOo

Mimi frowns and stares at the small blue device that sits innocently on the table, conversations with Yolei echoing through her head. The girl had asked her questions she held no answer to, enough of them to the point that Mimi had felt herself start to get angry and upset, a harsh headache coming on. But Yolei sounded so desperate, so near panicked.

"How many times did you come over to Japan back in the day?"

That was the one question that had persisted after the conversation had gotten cut off with Mimi asking, almost pleading, for Yolei to stop with the questions. Because she did have some of those memories intact, that hadn't faded with age. Time and time again being in Odaiba with the others long after she had moved to America. Too often to have had that many plane tickets over. Sometimes visiting for just an afternoon it seemed, her memory lacking anything other than that.

And then Yolei had asked about the device.

Of course she knew what she was talking about, the one that she hid in her drawer and always forgot about until it was too late and suddenly she was staring at it for too long with no memory of how it had arrived but tears falling down her face.

She looked around her room as if she was a stranger, searching for any hint. Her eyes landed on the cactus on her bedside table. The one she could remember buying clear back in middle school. Another cactus next to that. Some succulents. A single lily plant. More cacti in small pots. With a hesitant hand she reached over and rubbed a hand against the succulent. The rubbery texture, it felt… familiar, somehow.

But she couldn't place it.

Her eyes went to the cactus.

She went slowly, carefully, thinking clearly about her intentions. Knowing that it was foolish and made no sense.

Her hand touched it.

Reflexively her hand flinched back.

Mimi grit her teeth and went in again.

The needles bit into her skin, dozens and dozens of them, but she could feel it, right at the edge of her memory, begging her to recall… something. Someone. A voice that was sweet and then deep and then sweet again. She clutched it harder. A friend. A partner. A… a pal.

With a gasp her hand drew back, as if such an inane observation was just too much. The tipping point.

She spent the last of the afternoon with a pair of tweezers held over her hand, meticulously pulling out the small needles, tears streaming down her face.


	5. Chapter 5

Tai runs into Matt on complete accident. It's innocuous and accidental and such a strange perfect coincidence that it has no right existing in this world. He's at the grocery store staring at the milk and sizing up prices and trying to pick something because he knows no matter what he goes with his mom will find a way to turn it into a nightmare dinner or dessert. He reaches for a carton of milk at the same time as someone else and he jerks his hand back. It's like some stupid romcom that… that someone would watch. He knows someone in his past loved that kind of stuff and that they'd go on for hours about it but the names at his arsenal don't come to mind and none of them quite fit.

The troubled thought is easily tossed to the side when he finds himself look at none other than Matt Ishida, who he imagines has the exact same expression as himself. Surprised and mildly upset. Their last discussion hasn't gone well. Whatever the argument had been about had faded long with time but he can remember there being yelling and violent gesturing and one point he had reached over and grabbed Matt by the front of his shirt and yelled something at him with tears streaming down his face until all the fight left him all at once and sank to floor in tears.

While the exact argument may be gone, the unresolved tension remains and it is clear that neither of them had wanted to deal with it this way.

It's strange - he almost can't even think about mustering up that much emotion around Matt now. There's just nothing there, an empty hollow thing where friendship had once been. Now that Izzy has made him aware of it the feeling is unnerving and wrong.

"Hey." Matt makes the first move to attempt a conversation. The single word manages to be stilted and awkward all on its own.

"Uh, hi. Here for some… milk?"

"I… uh… yeah. I'm in charge of making dessert tonight. For TK and my dad."

Tai has no idea where to carry the conversation from there. The words just kind of hang in the air between them. Matt shifts his feet from side to side. Tai grabs the carton of milk just to have something to do with his hands. It's too cold in his grip. But it feels real, at least.

"You been doing alright?" He asks, the words lame and flat on his tongue. Matt nods jerkily.

"Working on my degree. A Physics major."

"Oh, STEM work. Impressive."

Matt's hand begins to fiddle with one of his earrings. The yin symbol. His other ear has the yang. How long has he had his ears pierced? Is that something he's supposed to know about Matt, or is it something that's new?

"I should head home." Matt says finally, reaching over and grabbing the small jug of milk. "See you around, I guess."

Tai nods jerkily as Matt disappears into the aisle. His hand holding the milk is cold.

oOo

Yolei eyed her corkboard with a critical eye.

"So Mimi wasn't any help?" She rolled her eyes and turned around to give a proper pout to the man who was plopped down on her bean bag chair, eating a bag of cheetos and getting the dust everywhere.

"It's a seed Davis. I'm planting a seed."

"So that's a big no." He said with a small, knowing was fully aware of how much he was annoying her.

"Urgh… why did I even let you in on this?"

"Pft, please, you didn't let me in on anything. I'm the one who started this investigation."

"Oh no you don't! I asked you if you remembered anything about the decline of Ken Ichijouji!"

"And I'm the one who gave you that." Davis said with a cocky smile, pointing to the corkboard. The item in the middle. A small polaroid photography depicting herself, Davis, Kari, and Tk all sitting down at a picnic, beaming at a camera. The thumb from the photographer covered just a bit of the edge. She must have been in her late teens, seventeen or so, and she wore clothes she had never own and sat in a place she had never been.

"...and I don't know if decline is the best word for it." Davis said, lolling his head back and staring at the ceiling.

"What else would you call it? His grades tanked, he started losing soccer matchers, dropped out of his high affluent school and started going to ours… sounds like a decline to me. Is that where we met him, when he started going to our school?"

"Sounds more like an upgrade." Davis said with a shrug. "Pretty sure that wasn't it though. I mean I met him at a soccer match once - accidentally hurt him. I remember that. But I don't know why we started to hang out. But I mean does it really matter? I don't remember why we used to be friends either." Yolei nodded alone to Davis' words, brain working.

"Except it does. It's harder to pin us down. There's too much room for coincidence or just explaining things away because we went to the same school. But there's no reason we should have been friends with Ken. If we can figure that out, then maybe we can figure out why we were such a close knit group. And what happened. And where exactly we went."

"Ugh, this is torture." Davis exclaimed, throwing his arms up. "Everytime I think I'm on the verge of remembering something it just slips right through. There must be a way to try and get through whatever barrier our brains put up. Maybe it's from trauma… are there solutions for that?" Yolei hummed to herself and looked back at her corkboard.

"We'll try something out."

oOo

"Alright, I think I have everything we need." Joe said as he entered Izzy's apartment. The place was bigger than anything he had ever been able to buy, Izzy's budding career as an advanced code scripter leaving him with enough room to get a place where the living room and the kitchen even had their own separate rooms. It made him feel ashamed whenever the idea of hosting their meet ups at his place was brought up. He didn't want the others to see his small messy place with careful medical notes posted on every available surface to help him study.

The table set up looked a lot like arts and crafts, with scissors and glue and pieces of posterboard. Joe set down the last armful of supplies on the table and looked at Izzy and Tai. Izzy was staring at the supplies with a slightly raised eyebrow. Joe felt himself blush.

"So… What's your idea?" It was clear that Izzy was trying to keep the sceptical tone out of his voice, but was also failing.

"I don't know what it is, but I for one am very excited." It was clear that Tai meant it too, already having reached across the table and started to absentmindedly fidget with a piece of paper.

"Well, uh, I was thinking that none of us can really understand what a lot of the letters say, right?" Joe said, and he gestured to the copies he had made of the two letters. "So maybe it would be better to try and isolate the concepts. Instead of trying to read it as a whole. And, uh, a studying technique I've used a lot is grouping information together in a visual form. So I was thinking that we could have a paper for words we done understand, and then one for phrases, and and then sentences and so on." Joe looked up nervously. Izzy's face was blank for one terrifying moment.

"Prodigious!" He declared, face lighting up, and Joe let out a small breath he had been holding. "We can even try to group together things we want to investigate specifically. Any people or pronouns."

"I'm definitely on board." Tai said, throwing Joe a bright smile that made his chest warm. "Classic Joe." He said, and it was clear that his mouth was moving before Tai had even full formed the words. "You always come through when we need you."

Joe let a smile creep on his face at the praise, heat rising to his cheeks. It felt good to be so -

And then suddenly Joe broke through the barrier into the water, feeling the freezing temperature of the bay press in on him from all sides. Panic flooded through his mind as he pushed through the water, hands reaching out for something… something… there! Joe felt his hand brush up against something, some kind of cloth. He followed it further and wrapped his fingers around the the small arm, pulling it up, pulling it to safety.

The world stuttered for a moment, reeling him forward. To a point where he is looking up at the water, alone this time. Above him, the sunlight refracts through the water, and it is beautiful. His lungs are burning, and yet he feels a surge of peace wash over him even as dark tendrils move in from the edges of his vision. Joe feels so tired, and his eyelids droop downwards, and then as if from very far away, something like pure light and ice surges through his veins.

-reliable.

Joe sputtered as he took in deep breaths, one hand clutching desperately at the front of his shirt. He could still feel the, like a ghost, the water around him, the cold clinging to his skin. It took him a moment to realize he was sitting on the floor, and there was a hand on his back, rubbing small circles. And voices. There were voices trying to talk to him. He forces himself to focus.

"-alright." Tai. Tai's voice. Familiar. Familiar in a way that is almost foreign. Like his mind can recognize more of the cadence there than before.

"I'm… I'm okay." Joe said, but even he could hear his voice tremble. He wasn't sure what that was. How that had happened. Already he could feel it beginning to slip through his fingers. "Can you… I need some paper. And a pencil." Izzy was up in a moment, going to grab something for him.

Joe sat for a moment, going over the thoughts in his mind, as if holding them in his hand. He wasn't sure what any of it meant. But he did feel like some kind of strange, profound, sorrow had began to bloom in his chest.


End file.
